History YMMV / Threads

* ParanoiaFuel: One of the most disturbing things about the film is how completely ''plausible'' the scenario that leads up to the war is. Especially since this movie came out at a time when the United States and the Soviet Union were more hostile to each other than ever, the idea of one international crisis causing the situation to escalate out of control seemed highly likely.

* TheWoobie: Ruth goes through absolute Hell throughout the course of the film. Her family is murdered by looters, her child's father is apparently killed in the initial bomb blast, she has to give birth to her daughter in a cold, empty barn, then she has to find a way to take care of said child. She spends the rest of her life planting crops to survive for food. Because of the depleted ozone and general radiation levels, she dies in her 30s while looking aged enough to be in her 70s or 80s. Of the leads, she lives the longest, but based on the horror we see her go through, she's in no way luckier than the ones that have died before her.

** UsefulNotes/RonaldReagan's offscreen cameo is very obviously provided by an impressionist.

** Also, Mr. Kemp. You'd think with three kids to the Beckett family's one, they'd have a better chance of their kids living through the blast. Nope. Michael is confirmed dead in a bomb explosion; the last we see of Allison, she was on her way to the supermarket for last-minute groceries and never comes back; and Jimmy was running through the streets of Sheffield when the bombs were dropping and he's never seen again. Due to their proximity, Kemp and his wife get a severe case of radiation poisoning, and Mrs. Kemp gets fourth degree burns and can barely move. Kemp is forced to watch his wife suffer and die, and when both of them break down weeping saying they wish they were dead/could trade places with Michael, you have to wonder if part of it is to end the suffering they're going through.The last time we see Kemp alive, he's alone, trying and failing to get drunk because he can't keep the whiskey he's traded his cigarettes for, and weeping over the deaths of his whole family as he listens to the music the electronic game his son used plays. Jesus Christ.

* TheWoobie: Ruth goes through absolute Hell throughout the course of the film. Of the leads, she lives the longest, but based on the horror we see her go through, she's in no way luckier than the ones that have died before her.

* TooBleakStoppedCaring: If you are a cynical soul, you will likely experience this as you watch the film. Then again, the whole point of this film is to demonstrate that in the event of a nuclear war, there will be no happy ending in the aftermath.

* FandomRivalry: A number of viewers are split over whether ''Film/TheDayAfter'' or ''Threads'' is the superior film. Fans of ''The Day After'' often dismiss ''Threads'' as excessively bleak and feel that the {{Bowdlerisation}} in the US film actually gave enough hope in it to spur a push towards nuclear disarmament, while fans of ''Threads'' criticize ''The Day After'' as too unrealistic and praise the UK film for its greater research. Then there's a third camp that appreciates both films and views the rivalry as a huge case of MisaimedFandom, given that the movies were never meant to be compared to one another like that.

** The guard at the detention camp whose face is covered with bloody bandages. His image is so iconic that it made it onto the cover of ''The Radio Times'' the month the film first aired, which attracted controversy for how disturbing the image was. There's a reason it serves as the page image for the [[NightmareFuel/{{Threads}} Nightmare Fuel page]].

* HarsherInHindsight: When Jimmy learns that Ruth is pregnant, she tries to calm him down, saying "It's not the end of the world". Three weeks later...

* AlternateCharacterInterpretation: Is Jane mentally handicapped, possibly due to birth defects resulting from in utero radiation exposure? Or is she just severely socially maladjusted as a result of her generation being born without proper upbringing or education in a world largely inimical to human life?

* RealismInducedHorror: Gee, ''[[UpToEleven you think?]]'' A big thing about what makes ''Threads'' so damn terrifying is that all the horrors that occur in this movie ''could actually happen in real life in the event of an actual nuclear war''. It's clear that the movie [[ShownTheirWork did its homework]] on the effects of nuclear war, fallout, and nuclear winter. Not to mention [[CrapsackWorld the overall collapse of society and environmental destruction]] that would also result from it all.

* AngstAversion: This is a very hard film to go through, as it display the aftermath of a nuclear war in a very bleak, horrifying and realistic fashion, ending on a DownerEnding. Unsurprisingly, many have refused to watch the film because of how bleak and depressing it is.

* FunnyAneurysmMoment: When Jimmy learns that Ruth is pregnant, she tries to calm him down, saying "It's not the end of the world". Three weeks later...

** The guard at the detention camp whose face is covered with bloody bandages. His image is so iconic that it made it onto the cover of ''The Radio Times'' the month the film first aired, which attracted controversy for how disturbing the image was.

* MemeticMutation: Anne Sellors, [[http://www.imdb.com/name/nm1856457/ whose acting career]] begins and ends with her role in this film as "woman who urinates herself".

** The woman cradling her dead child in the ruins after the attack, [[ThousandYardStare staring unblinkingly at Ruth]] as she passes by. It serves as the page image for the [[TearJerker/{{Threads}} page for a reason.

** The woman cradling her dead child in the ruins after the attack, [[ThousandYardStare staring unblinkingly at Ruth]] as she passes by. It's the page image for both the [[TearJerker/{{Threads}} Tear Jerker]] and [[NightmareFuel/{{Threads}} Nightmare Fuel]] pages for this film.

* SomeAnvilsNeedToBeDropped: No matter what those "Protect and Survive" booklets issued by the government told you, the UK government expected at least 20-25% of her own population to die in a 'minimal' nuclear exchange (of the kind needed merely to put her out of the war). The rest would not be very well off, for that matter. This needed to be said, and this film said it loudly and without any sugaring.
** The biggest one of all: ''"You cannot win a nuclear war."''
--> '''Anti-Nuclear activist''': Now just suppose the Russians win this war... What exactly would they be winning? What would they have conquered? Well, I'll tell you: all major centres of population and industry would have been destroyed...Oil refineries will have been destroyed, all our water will have been polluted, the soil will have been irradiated. Farmstock will be dead, diseased or dying. ''The Russians would have conquered a '''corpse''' of a country.''

* DontShootTheMessage: Although the film was generally well-received by critics, it also had its share of detractors who took great pains to note that they understood the anti-war message Hines was pushing but found the extremely bleak tone to undermine the effectiveness of the message and make the film an unpleasant slog. As with most movies like this the question has been raised of whether it's worth using such trauma-inducing or otherwise disturbing material without any meaningful catharsis at the end.

* SoBleakItsBoring: If you are a cynical soul, you will likely stop caring about who lives and who dies as you watch the film. Then again, the whole point of this film is to demonstrate that in the event of a nuclear war, there will be no happy ending in the aftermath.

* DullSurprise: The Sheffield city managers are remarkably skilled and dispassionate while mapping the locations of nuclear blasts. It comes across as them being as proficient and bored as if they were doing a daily traffic report.

* {{Narm}}: The airburst nuke that destroys Britain's power grid with an EMP is represented by three shots of exploding power transformers, and one random shot of [[StuffBlowingUp an exploding clothes iron.]]

* DullSurprise: The Sheffield city managers are remarkably skilled and dispassionate while making the locations of nuclear blasts. It comes across as them being as proficient and bored as if they were doing a daily traffic report.